I'm Alive!!

Yes, I am still alive! Thanks to the wonders of (other people's) wireless Internet accounts, I am able to type this from the comfort of my own Japanese home, rather than an Internet cafe. My husband went to one the other day and it was an adventure trying to communicate to the clerk what we wanted.

Everything is going well, no major mishaps to report. We just finished our first few days of teaching, and after a somewhat rocky training period my husband and I are doing fine. I've taught lessons about discussing pet peeves, dealing with bad neighbors, describing art, discussing the weather, asking about prices in shops, etc. etc. The students come from all walks of life and in one class I might have a junior high student, a doctor, a housewife and a farmer. All of my students have been pleasant to instruct and though my teaching skills could use some work, I like the job so far.

Our apartment is small, but nice. It is on the fifth floor and we have a decent view of the city and, when it is not too smoggy, Mt. Fuji. Actually, we have only been able to see Mt. Fuji a couple of times. Here is a view from one of our balconies.



We live much closer to Tokyo than I thought. It is only a 25 minute train ride or so, and that's with all of the stops. So from now on I'm going to claim that my husband and I live in Tokyo, rather than Iruma, because it sounds far cooler and it may as well be true. We've only explored two sections of Tokyo, Ikebukoro and Shinjuku, but both areas have everything a person could want.

I have found that many stereotypes about Japan are true and many are not. For example, yes Hello Kitty is popular. We have seen Hello Kitty hot dogs and toilet paper, but not a whole lot of clothing.

Also, Japanese women are not all tiny, dainty creatures. In fact, I have seen many women who are as tall if not taller than me, and fatter. Even my husband is not so tall here and he's just shy of six feet. I should be able to fit into some of their clothing, which is something I didn't expect to be able to do. However, I have only seen maxi pads, someone might have to ship me some tampons!

There is a lot of gross food around, and one unfortunate night my husband and I accidently ate chicken liver and fried gristle/animal tendons. We went to a restaurant near our home and my husband ordered by pointing to other people's food, which resulted in the fried horror. Everything was in Japanese and no one spoke English so it was the only thing we could do. Thankfully, we had two giant bottles of Kirin beer to wash the fat down. On another night, we went to a bar/restaurant with some people from work, including three Japanese women, and they ordered all kinds of scary food. Delightful dishes of chicken fat and chicken skin, squid guts, and sushi with raw horse meat on top found its way to our table that night.

One strange thing I noticed about some restaurants (and various other businesses) is their choice of music. My husband and I visited this small little place in Ikebukuro (the section of Tokyo nearest us), and while we were enjoying our fried rice alongside Japanese business men, a Ludicrous song came on with the charming lyrics "I got a big weed stash, pocket full of cash, just saw me a big ol ass. It's Saturday! Whooo whooo!" Some of you may know it. It was bizarre.
Getting around on the train/subway is simple enough, although we have not tried to travel too far from our apartment. One evening, we weren't paying attention and rode the train three stops too far, which would not have been a big deal if the trains back had not been shut down for the night. We had our home address with us, written in Japanese no less, but when we tried to take a cab the driver didn't understand. He dropped us off about a mile from our apartment, so we had to wander the streets of Iruma and try to find our place at one in the morning. A nice guy we found on the street pointed us in the right direction, otherwise we could have wandered for hours. That was our biggest adventure in Japan thus far.